Note: There will likely be music on the iPod that was purchased through iTunes. In many cases, those songs will be locked with DRM, and cannot be used (unless you have access to that original iTunes account, which I will add instructions to the bottom of this post on how to remove the DRM from those songs the legal way). Fortunately, the files that are locked are generally the same file type (from what I've found) .m4p. Because of this, it's pretty easy to run a script to filter those ones out when importing them to iTunes (if that's the software route you decide to take).
Note 2: The format of the original source does matter! If the iPod was originally synced to a Mac, you can only do this process on Linux/Mac, Windows will not be able to read a Mac formatted iPod. If the iPod was originally synced to a Windows computer, all 3 OS's can read it just fine. If you do not have a Mac while trying to back one of these up, I highly recommend creating a live USB with Ubuntu or whatever so you can copy the files that way. You can even pop them right into your Windows home folder if you wanted!
Linux
- Plug in the iPod
- Mount the iPod if it doesn't automatically
- The folder we are looking for is hidden. It will be contained in the root directory of the iPod drive. In this case, we are assuming the iPod name is IPOD_DRIVE and is mounted in /mnt/:
/mnt/IPOD_DRIVE/iPod_Control/Music - Copy the contents of the /Music/ directory to a location of your choice.
Note: The files names will be random looking, and will not reflect the actual song titles (AKNK.mp3 for example). The song information is contained within the metadata, so it can normally be renamed automatically using a tool like FileBot (which is a paid program, but it honestly works really well in cases like this, and I believe is worth it if you plan on renaming these files). You can also leave the files as they are, but just be aware that if you plan on using RockBox, you may encounter some issues (I'm not sure if RockBox accounts for the metadata, I'd assume it does, though).
- Plug in the iPod
- The iPod will appear as a disk, named the same name as the iPod. Open the disk in Finder.
- The folder we are looking for is hidden. To show hidden files, press 'Command' + 'Shift' + '.' (the period key) at the same time. When you can see the hidden files, navigate to the following:
/iPod_Control/Music - Copy the contents of the /Music/ directory to a location of your choice. If you plan on using iTunes, put the files in a different directory to deal with files that might be DRM locked first. You can do this step within iTunes, but it's kind of a pain in the butt.
Note: The files names will be random looking, and will not reflect the actual song titles (AKNK.mp3 for example). The song information is contained within the metadata, so it will import into iTunes correctly. If you want to rename all the files, I recommend a tool called FileBot, which is a paid tool, but works really well if you need to rename a ton of files.
I do not have a Windows computer to test this process on - this is just my assumption, please feel free to correct me and I will update it accordingly!
If the iPod asks to be formatted in File Explorer, DON'T! You will erase all the contents by doing this. Please refer to Note 2 at the beginning of this post to see what to do.
- Plug in the iPod
- The iPod will appear as a disk, named the same name as the iPod. Open the disk in File Explorer.
- The folder we are looking for is hidden. To show hidden files, follow this guide https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... Windows_11. When you can see the hidden files, navigate to the following:
\iPod_Control\Music - Copy the contents of the \Music\ directory to a location of your choice. If you plan on using iTunes, put the files in a different directory to deal with files that might be DRM locked first. You can do this step within iTunes, but it's kind of a pain in the butt.
Note: The files names will be random looking, and will not reflect the actual song titles (AKNK.mp3 for example). The song information is contained within the metadata, so it will import into iTunes correctly. If you want to rename all the files, I recommend a tool called FileBot, which is a paid tool, but works really well if you need to rename a ton of files.
When you have copied the music files
In the cases of using iTunes/Music to re-import this music, I highly recommend the following (Windows/macOS only):
- Quit iTunes/Music
- Navigate to the music folder on your computer (the path structure is the same in Windows and macOS)
iTunes: /Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Automatically Add to iTunes/
Music: /Music/Music/Media/Automatically Add to Music/ - Copy the contents to this automatically Add" directory. You can include folders, it will parse those automatically.
- When the copy is done, open iTunes/Music, and it will start moving things around for you!
If you have DRM files but you know the iTunes account
I am not 100% sure if the requires iTunes Match or not. I pay for this feature, so I'm not able to test this process without it. If it does, you can sign up for it here - https://support.apple.com/en-us/108935
- Sign into the iTunes account, authorize the computer (this varies in almost every version, just search menus for that option)
- Right click the song(s) you want to remove the DRM from
- Select "Create AAC version"
Note: This will create a duplicate version of the song, so you will have to clean up the old versions
- There is nothing you can do - these files are useless. Consider buying them or pirating them, I don't care when it comes to this process.
